


An Awareness of Ends and Means

by Grau



Category: Marvel 616, Young Avengers (Comics)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Holiday Fic Exchange, M/M, gratuitous mentions of Piaget
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-05 21:11:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13396314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grau/pseuds/Grau
Summary: Tommy is more attentive than he lets on, and yet there are things he still doesn't know about David. When he decides it's on him to distract his boyfriend from his frustration, he gets the chance to learn something new.





	An Awareness of Ends and Means

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Khirsah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khirsah/gifts).



> This was written for the Young Avengers Exchange 2017. The prompt is a slight spoiler, so I'll post it in the notes at the end of the fic.   
> This is set somewhen after the events of Children's Crusade. As I'm not too well versed in David's comic canon pre-YA, I'll ask for a slight suspension of disbelief regarding the timeline of events. 
> 
> Thank you so much for your patience, and I hope you will enjoy this piece! :>

The fifth time he had to start reading the page from the top, David’s lips started twitching. He didn’t notice it himself, too preoccupied with the task at hand. Silently, Tommy added it to the tally he kept in the sidebar of his mind, right next to the amount of times David had stretched his wrist, uncapped and re-capped his highlighters, reached for a new color-coded sticky note in the last fifteen minutes. Tommy kept an immaculate record of every one of David’s little mannerisms, because the one thing that Tommy had a lot of – if he was to believe everyone else on the planet - was time.

He put his to good use by lounging on one of the three chairs in their apartment that was not broken or otherwise occupied and speedreading, quite literally, through a fat stack of lifestyle magazines. As luck would have it, this position allowed him to observe David both carefully and comfortably. There it was again – he cracked his neck, and his eyes drifted back up to a passage that by now, he must have read a million times. Tommy took less than the fraction of a split second to review his collected data, and decided that, without a shadow of a doubt, David was in some serious need of a distraction.

David was getting frustrated, and Tommy was getting fed up.

“Hey, Davie”, he said, and watched the wrinkles on his boyfriend’s forehead grow deeper, “let’s do lunch.”

“It’s 10”. David did not look up from the book holding him hostage. “AM.”

“Uh, Yeah, I know. I own a watch, David, I’m an adult.” Tommy pulled up the sleeve of his sweater west to reveal his plastic Spider-Man watch, stopped eternally at 3:07 PM. He looked at David across the table, and when his usual tired, yet endeared smile failed to appear on his beautiful face, Tommy stopped shaking his leg and leant closer. “I could call Billyboy and his nerdy boy toy, make it a double date, huh? Whaddaya say? Thai?”

“Tommy-“, David sighed, and Tommy snatched the light green highlighter out of his hand and leant back in his chair.

“No to Thai? Italian, then.” Tommy flicked the pen back and forth, let it wander between his fingers. “Or Mexican?” “Tommy.” “Playin’ hard to get, I like it. Sushi? I know you like watching me flail about with the rice. Or we can do Kebab, Chinese, Minnesotan, Hot Dog stand – “

“Tommy!” David slammed the book shut with a loud thud. “I don’t have time for this right now.”

“Takeout?”

David shook his head and stretched out his open palm. “Give it back.”

“No.”

“Give it back, Tommy. I don’t have time to entertain you.”

“Okay, we don’t have to do food. But we’re gonna have to do something”; Tommy frowned, and let David snatch the highlighter from his hand, “Because I can tell that that thing”; he gestured to the book,” is driving you crazy, and when you’re driven crazy, that’s driving me crazy, and I don’t want to blow up this flat when we only signed the lease a month ago.”

David mirrored his frown and tapped the pen against the back of the book. “The thought that you’d be completely fine with blowing up the flat if we’d rented it just a month earlier doesn’t make me any calmer – “

“Ha! So you admit something’s off –“

“ – if I wasn’t completely calm in the first place, which I am, so-“

“Yeah right, and I’m the pope. C’mon, David, I love you, and I don’t want to see you slave away over-“ he grabbed the book, just fast enough to be too fast for David’s eyes to follow, “”Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development?” He whistled through his teeth and flipped over a few pages, opening the book at a random passage. “No wonder you abused your poor sticky notes like that. This isn’t exactly what I’d call light reading-“

“- you don’t have to read it”, David started, annoyed, but Tommy quickly cuts him off before he could open his mouth again.

“Well, neither do you! Just put the thing away for an hour or two, that’s all I want. So you can actually relax a little, enjoy our day off.”

“I can’t- “

“Can’t or won’t?”

“Just give it back, Tommy.”

“No. No way. I’m confiscating this, for your own safety.”

“Tommy, you’re being ridiculous!”, David got up, and stretched out his arm.

“No, I’m being a good boyfriend. What’s so important about you finishing this book anyway?”

He shifted his feet. “I’m interested in it.”

“Well, you can be interested in it later, when you don’t look like you’re minutes from snapping all your dollar store highlighters in half.“

“No, I can’t-“

“- can too-“

“- cannot!” David raised his voice, and Tommy flinched back, just a bit, just enough for him to notice. There’s nothing in the room except their breathing, inhaled air pulling apart. David’s hand was jittery, sought hold on the chair’s back. “Sorry”.

Tommy let the book sink onto the table. “This isn’t really about the Piaget, is it?”

David loosened his grip on the back of the chair, let it glide across the plastic surface, scratch at an unevenly manufactured seam. Then he sat back down, heavy, an air around him that Tommy knew all too well. He sat down as well, kept his hands off the table – gave him some space. There was nothing in the room except their breathing, exhaled air pushing together.

“I’d lost my powers”, David started, each word tripping, stumbling over his lips as if they had had to be pushed out of his mouth. Tommy nodded, pressing down on his thigh to prevent his leg from shaking, to keep the moment David’s. “And Three-In-One offered me access to the knowledge I’d kept locked away.” Tommy nodded again. “But, they said, I would never be able to learn anything new.”

“I didn’t realize what it meant, not then. I thought it had to do with my power, and I already knew at that point that it was gone for good, and I’d stopped mourning for it. So I said yes. And I would again, but- “, he had to take a moment, take a deep breath. “I didn’t even notice at first, all that knowledge flooding back in so suddenly – it was kind of overwhelming. Like that feeling when you first discover what you can do, that you can do things at all, multiplied by a thousand”. Tommy’s legs tingled, and his heart jumped at the thought.

“I think – I think it was about a week later, when someone – shit, I don’t even remember who – came running to me, yelling where the hell I’d been. They had asked me to oversee their training, and I couldn’t remember. I could barely remember having a conversation with the guy.” David shook his head, and tore at the edges of one of the notes he’d written to himself in tight, winding cursive. “They’d been waiting for me for an hour.” “It took me a while to connect the dots, because I kept forgetting what I was forgetting, and I had different things to worry about, but” David sought Tommy’s eyes, and he nodded.

“You can’t learn anything new” Tommy said, his voice ech-oing gravely off the plastic furniture. “Oh, fuck, babe, I didn’t realize-“ he started, cut himself off, started again and was stopped by David’s face, the look in his eyes. “Why didn’t you- “ another stop, and he decided to stop talking.

Tommy stood up slowly, walked around the table and behind David’s chair. He touched his shoulders, and then, when David hummed and closed his eyes and leant his head back against Tommy’s stomach, he bent down and wrapped his arms around him, and pulled him as tight as their awkward position would allow.

“It’s not as bad anymore. I – I recovered, partly”, David’s voice was a low hum. Tommy kept silent, and pressed his nose in the crook of his neck. “Learnt how to cope, with planners and notes. It’s gotten easier to remember. But- still- ”. He stopped talking, turned his head a hint of an inch towards Tommy.

Tommy reached for David’s hand. He let him take it.

“Jesus, babe, that fucking sucks”, Tommy whispered, and pulled him tighter. “I’m glad you could tell me.”

They stayed like that for a while, neither of them sure for how long for quite different reasons. Tommy broke away, lifted his head. He kept his hands on David’s shoulders. “I’m gonna get us some coffee, and then we can go crackin’ on this thing together, yeah? Nerd style.”

There was the familiar sound of air David had grown accustomed to over the past few months, a woosh, an action line out of their building. His sticky notes settled on the floor, a rainbow of scattered thoughts. David stayed seated. He took off his glasses and wrapped the hem of his shirt around them. The fabric wasn’t the right kind to clean glasses, too coarse, too little give. David cleaned his glasses until Tommy was back 25 minutes later.

The paper cup was still piping hot, the logo of a chain that operated exclusively on the other side of town. Tommy gave it to him with a knowing smile, as if to say, “Traffic, am I right?”. He picked up the sticky notes while David scalded his tongue on his first sip, and arranged the few that had notes written on them in the order he thought they made the most sense.

“Sorry for the wait”, he said, and pulled up his chair, “Took a detour to the library, had some overdue Self-help books. “

“Sure. The Self 2.0?” David raised a brow, scooted towards the table. He picked up the book again, and flipped to the start of the chapter he’d been stuck on.

“Hey, no software jokes. I’m sensitive.” Tommy grabbed the light green sticky notes and the light green highlighter, “To stay on brand”, and pushed his chair over next to David’s. He chugged down half his coffee in one go, and gave David a kiss on the shoulder to wipe his mouth. “Alright, lay it on me. How can I help?”

David, mildly disgusted, punched Tommy in the shoulder and shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not really used to studying together.”

“Okay, alright. What stage of development you on?”

David didn’t give Tommy the satisfaction of being impressed. Twenty-five minutes was a long time for him to get two cups of coffee. “Sensorimotor. Still.”

“Huh. Didn’t I see you with Piaget a few days ago-“

“Yeah.”

“And—oh.”

David fingered the page. “Yeah.” He folded over its edge. “It’s the first time since… it’s been a while since I tried reading something so –“

“Convoluted? I mean, geez, these academic types – no offense – better get paid by the word, huh.”

“Whenever I read something, it’s just – soon as I reach the end of the page, the top half of it is just. It’s gone.” David plucks one of the notes out of the row at the table, and sticks it at the top of the page. “And these don’t help too much. At this rate, I might as well re-write the whole thing myself.”

“Hey, Davie”, Tommy said, softly this time, “maybe you should’ve started with something, you know. Not written by the French.”

David looked at him, shook his head. Sighed. “I know- and don’t even think about holding this against me later - you’re right. I’ve tried reading them too – all those self help books you had to return”, Tommy grinned sheepishly, and David leant his shoulder against his, rested his weight on him, “Jokes, short stories, quotes, training your brain to remember again… I know all that. I know it. But- It’s just- “, David sat back up, stared at the book. “It used to be so easy.”

Tommy pulled him in a tight, suffocating side hug, kissed the patch of skin right under David’s eye and spectacularly messed up his glasses. “Well, it’s about to get even easier, cause I just cracked the case.”

“Cracked the -?” David raised an eyebrow and adjusted his glasses. “This isn’t a whodunnit-“

“Your problem”, Tommy continued, wagging a finger, “is that you’re a smart person.”

“Alright. You lost me.”

“Wait wait wait, just lemme finish – you’re a smart person, right? Right. So, you only ever learned how to study like a smart person. I knew a few of those back in school” he pulled a face. “They’d always read the whole book in one go, and just know it. Cheating, if you ask me – but see, you can’t do that anymore, right?”

“I know, Tommy- “

“Yeah, I know you know, you just don’t know what to do about it, right? Cause you never had to know before.” David nodded slowly. “So, there you have it. You’re just gonna have to learn how study like the rest of us dumbos. And you’re in luck, too, cause I’m the smartest dumb person you’ll ever meet.” He kissed him on the cheek again. “Guaranteed!”

David looked at him over the rim of his tousled glasses. “That makes enough sense to try, I guess.”

“It makes all the sense, and you know it.”

“All the sense?”

“All of it. Alright, buckle up, kiddo. First of all, we gotta establish parameters. Soon as you get frustrated, you tell me, and we stop. Take a lil break. You can’t absorb knowledge from these babes”; he pats the book with the back of the highlighter, “if half your brain’s occupied with being angry at yourself. Promise?”

“…promise. I’ll let you know.”

“Second, no timetable. No expectations for this one. You’re reading this for pleasure, right, you fuckin’ weirdo?”, Tommy rolled his eyes, softened by the smile curling the corners of his mouth upward. “So don’t think about needing to have it done. You can save the stress for later, when you really need it.”

“Alright, I got it. Stress is bad. Thanks.”

“Laugh at my philosophy and feel the pain, Alleyne. You know I’m right, you said so yourself- ow-“ Tommy fake cried as David punched him in the arm again. “It’s not just some bullshit, I mean it.”

David took his hand and squeezed it. “Yeah. I know.”

“Good”. Tommy squeezed back. “Then let’s get into it!”

They spend the next two hours hunched over the paperback, chunking away at it until they had the chapter summarized and summarized again and the table was covered in sticky notes. Tommy’s hands were green and red from the highlighter, more of it on his skin than the actual pages of the book, and David’s had stopped stretching, as his teeth had stopped biting his lips.

They put the book aside, and did lunch.

Tommy wiped some sauce off his cheek, and looked at David over the rim of his styrofoam box. He was concentrating on his gnocchi, head tilted; half listening to the radio chatter away in the background. Tommy slurped up another noodle. If anyone had told him years – hell, one year ago – that he’d ever find a person he’d willingly read a Swiss psychologist’s developmental theory for… back then, the funnies in the New York Times would have stretched it.

Tommy leant over, put his face close to David’s. “Hey, David? I really love you.”

David had to smile, his mouth still full of gnocchi. Tommy sank back into his chair, satisfied.

He set the tallies to zero.

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt that I chose was "Way back in New Mutants/New X-Men, David lost his mutant gift. The Stepfords were able to unlock everything he had ever learned via his gift, but said he would never be able to learn anything new. What if that was literal, and not just a reference to his gift? He has the knowledge and abilities of scores of X-Men, but he struggles to pick up new skills. Tommy has noticed his boyfriend struggling with some new technology or language or what-have-you. Despite having no interest in it himself, Tommy goes out of his way to learn it so he can help David."
> 
> Rather than focus on a single skill/language, I incorporated more general possible consequences of a traumatic brain injury wrt memory.


End file.
